In an LTE (Long Term Evolution) being standardized in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) which is a group aiming to standardize a radio communication system, a technology called SON (Self Organizing Network) is employed. According to the SON, it is expected to automatize the installation or maintenance of a radio base station, which does not require a field measurement or setting by personnel (for example, refer to Non Patent Literature 1).
In the SON, there has been proposed a technique of suppressing power consumption by controlling on/off of power of a radio base station (called “eNB” in the 3GPP). Such a technique is termed “Energy Savings”. In the energy savings, when the power of the radio base station eNB is turned on, the radio base station eNB notifies another radio base station eNB that the power of the radio base station eNB is turned on. Furthermore, when turning on the power of another radio base station eNB, the radio base station eNB notifies the other radio base station eNB that the power of the other radio base station eNB is turned on.
However, the aforementioned energy saving technique stipulates only a case where the entire radio base stations eNB, which are considered to be one unit, are turned on or off. Therefore, more efficient power control is demanded where power consumption can be suppressed as much as possible also when a radio base station eNB is operating.